May 14, 2005

What's Your Plan B?

Dr. W. David Hager, an evangelical doctor who prescribes prayer for PMS, may have had undue influence over the Food and Drug Administration's decision on over-the-counter status for the emergency contraceptive Plan B.

Religious fanatics who blatantly disregard their hippocratic oath in the name of their own personal faith shouldn't be deemed worthy of the title of "doctor." And this guy is a GYNECOLOGIST! This guy is supposed to be some kind of authority on women's health issues??? What a crock of shit.

A recent article in The Nation reveals some insight into his marriage to Linda Hager (now Davis), which was not exactly "holy" in and of itself. This guy is one crazy mysogynistic fucker.

"Even though I was trained as a medical specialist," Hager explained in the preface to As Jesus Cared for Women, "it wasn't until I began to see how Jesus treated women that I understood how I, as a doctor, should treat them." To underscore this revelation, Hager recounted case after case in which he acted as confidant, spiritual adviser and even father figure to his grateful patients. As laid out in his writings, Hager's worldview is not informed by a sense of inherent equality between men and women. Instead, men are expected to act as benevolent authority figures for the women in their lives.

Check out this snippet of marital bliss:Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. "He would say, 'Oh, I didn't mean to have anal sex with you; I can't feel the difference,'" Davis recalls incredulously. "And I would say, 'Well then, you're in the wrong business.'"

This is yet another example in the long, exhaustive list of examples, of the kinds of scumbuckets the Bush Administration consorts with in matters of public policy. This needs to stop. The Feminist Majority is encouraging concerned folks to bombard the FDA mailboxes with letters of outrage at their delay in giving over-the-counter status to Plan B. Do your part here.